


Lay Your Burdens Down

by ignipes



Series: Zombie Apocalypse (Supernatural) [2]
Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-03
Updated: 2007-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-07 04:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I know of a place we can go, Sam had said. A safe place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lay Your Burdens Down

There are posters on every building, stapled to fences and taped to windows, declaring the town officially evacuated and warning that those who disobey will be arrested and imprisoned.

Dean rips a poster off the front doors of a small grocery store and picks the lock.

There is nobody around -- even the army is long gone from this part of the state, has been for months -- but he's wary of breaking the glass. If there is anything in town, the last thing he wants is to get its attention.

The door opens easily and no alarm sounds, and Dean ducks inside, not bothering to turn on his flashlight or look for a light switch. When his eyes adjust he sees that most of the shelves in the store are empty, and it looks like somebody smashed up the cash register. Dean wipes his finger across the counter; there's a thin layer of dust over everything, more than a month's worth.

He hurries through the aisles, grabbing anything that looks edible and non-perishable, and smiles grimly when he finds a stash of canned green beans and spinach. Goes out scavenging for ammo, comes back loaded with vegetables. Sam will be so proud.

Dean piles the cans into his duffels and hoists the bags onto his shoulders, groaning aloud at the sharp pain in his ribs and back. It's not so bad when he's not hauling shit around or running for his life, but sometimes it seems like every move he makes is bound and determined to remind him he's not it any kind of fighting shape.

Not that there's anything he can do about it. The last staffed hospital they found was six states ago, and Sam still has bruises on his wrists and ankles from the welcome they received at that charming institution.

Outside the store the street is still quiet and empty, a little brighter but still not quite dawn. They've seen a lot of empty towns these last few weeks -- towns where everybody has been moved away or stolen, towns where every last person has gone mad or died, towns full of corpses and towns razed to the ground -- but this is a clean one: no cars crashed in the streets, no bodies littering the gutters, no burned-out shells of buildings.

Dean knows he should be grateful for that, knows that probably means everybody got out before _it_ came, but the clean towns freak him out even more than the ones that are choked with death and destruction. If the world's going to end, it should making a big fucking mess when it goes. It shouldn't slip away silently leaving only taped-up posters and forgotten cans of beans in its wake.

The grocery store is only a few blocks from the water. He moves swiftly along the streets, gun in one hand, keeping close to the buildings from long habit.

He rounds a corner near the marina and a flash of movement catches his eye. Dean freezes immediately, his heart pounding in his chest, hand tightening on the grip of the gun. He doesn't hear anything. No shuffling footsteps, no ragged gasping, no strangled moans, no sounds of guns being cocked or knives being drawn. He doesn't smell anything -- people, after _it_ gets to them, stink like hell, sulphur and blood and rot, whether they're still alive or freshly dead, but he smells nothing except the ocean.

Slowly, cautiously, he turns his head and raises his gun.

It's a dog. A fucking dog, a scrawny little Lab with matted yellow fur and big brown eyes, eyeing him warily from the middle of the road.

With a relieved sigh, Dean lowers his gun. "Hey, buddy," he says softly. "What're you--"

The dog growls low in its throat and races away, its paws pattering on the pavement until it is gone from sight.

"Right," Dean mutters. "Can't say I blame you." He's seen what man does to man's best friend after _it_ comes to town. If he was an animal, he'd run too.

Dean adjusts the strap of a duffel on his shoulder and continues toward the marina. The car they stole in Connecticut is parked by one of the docks, and Sam is unloading things from the trunk. He looks up as Dean approaches. "Find anything?"

"Grocery store," Dean says, dropping the bags on the ground with a wince. "Brought you some veggies so you can get your vitamins."

"Gee, thanks. Nothing else?"

"This town is completely empty," Dean tells him. "I think it has been for months, probably since the evacuation."

Sam nods, as though he's relieved to hear Dean say it out loud. "Yeah. Good. I found a boat we can use." He gestures down the dock. "I've already started loading stuff up."

"Sam..." Dean waits for Sam to glance back at him. "I don't know if this is such a good idea."

"We can't stay here."

"I know, it's just..."

"Dean."

Sam's voice is low and patient, but Dean can hear the exhaustion and frustration. They've had this argument before, across weeks and miles, driving stolen cars and standing watch in the night while fires burned in the distance, running from any sign of life and zigzagging around roadblocks and quarantine lines, ever since Dean had awoken bloody and battered in Chicago to find Sam leaning over him and whispering, _I know of a place we can go._

"I know you don't want to run away, but -- Dean, look at us. Look at all of this." Sam raises his arms to take in the town, the empty streets and abandoned buildings. "We can't fight this. _You_ can't fight this, not right now. You can barely stand up for five minutes--" He holds up his hand when Dean starts to interrupt, a gesture so like what Dad used to do that Dean almost smiles. "Shut up," Sam says, but there's no venom in it. "You know I'm right. We're not in any shape to do _anything_, Dean, much less take on... all of this."

All of this. The end of the world, the fall of civilization, the return of the dead. _It_. Whatever the hell it was. Demon, plague, curse, all of those things and more wrapped into one ugly package, whatever it is--

Whatever it is, Sam is right. Two injured guys with guns aren't much use against it. Haven't been much use, not since the beginning. Staying alive is about all they've been able to manage.

"Yeah," Dean agrees. "Yeah, I know."

"Besides," Sam adds, and on his lips there is the first glimmer of a smile Dean has seen in weeks, maybe months, "you're always saying you want to take a vacation. Hit the beach, get a tan, do some fishing..."

"I hate fishing."

Sam does smile then, almost laughs as he leans down to lift a few more things out of the trunk. Weapons, supplies, stolen medicines. They've been collecting whatever they can find, wherever they go, perfecting the fine art of scavenging from other people's abandoned lives.

"You sure you're going to be able to find this island?" Dean asks. Dean takes a deep breath before leaning down to pick up the bags of food again; when he stumbles a bit Sam reaches out to grab one before he can protest. "It's a big ocean."

_I know of a place we can go,_ Sam had said, back in Chicago -- it felt like a lifetime ago -- and even through the haze of pain and fear Dean had understood what he was offering. _A safe place_. Little island, far from the coast, just a few families that were probably evacuated, easily defensible if it came to that. A friend of his at Stanford told him about it, had a grandfather who used to be a lobsterman.

"I took the charts from the marina office," Sam tells him. "It'll be easy enough to find."

"You know how to read nautical charts?" As soon as Dean says it, a warning bell goes off in his mind, and he turns toward the dock again. "Sam? What kind of boat did you find?"

"That one at the end there," Sam said, pointing with his free hand.

"That's a sailboat."

"Uh, yeah?"

"Not a motorboat?"

"I don't want to take something that needs fuel," Sam explains. "We have no idea what we'll find out on the islands. Is that a problem?"

"You don't know how to sail." Dean pauses. "Do you?"

Sam shrugs. "Jess's parents used to have a house in Monterey. We went there on the weekends and during the summer... She taught me," he says with another shrug. "I still remember. It's not that hard."

"Okay," Dean says slowly. "But if you sink us..."

"I won't. Promise."

Sam slams the trunk, pats the stolen Honda in farewell, and heads down the dock. Dean follows without hesitation; that's good enough for him. Most of their stuff is in the boat already, and after they stow the last few things Sam points to a bench and says, "Sit there and don't touch anything until I tell you."

"Yes, Captain."

Sam grins and leans over to untie the boat from the dock. "If I'm the captain, does that make you my wench?"

Dean snorts. "These guns are still loaded, dude."

"Don't waste ammo on me. Keep it for the sharks."

"Sharks?"

"You never know."

Dean thinks of a few choice comebacks, but as Sam begins doing various sailor-like things and the boat glides away from the marina, he decides he doesn't need to say anything at all. Given a choice between what's behind them and hypothetical sharks before them, he knows which he'd rather take his chances with.

It's colder out on the water, the morning air brisk and lively, and Dean huddles down in his jacket as they pull away from the mainland. He looks back at the town, at the gray storm-washed houses huddled along the coast and the empty roads winding away. It seems wrong for so much stillness and silence to be what they're running from, but the sky overhead is tinged with red and on the horizon a smudge of smoke stains the land black. They can't see them from here, can't hear them or smell them or taste their bitter, metallic blood, but he knows they're still out there. The ones who couldn't run fast or smart enough.

Dean turns around, away from the mainland. Sam is fiddling with some ropes, frowning in concentration under his wind-tossed hair, and it takes a few seconds for him to notice Dean watching him.

When he looks up, he smiles. "It'll be okay," he says, and goes back to work.

Dean only nods, closes his eyes as the sun peeks above the horizon, and hopes to hell Sam actually knows what he's doing.


End file.
